This isn't as much for "brass players", though. It's about the saxophone.
The sax body is made mostly of brass but the instrument is considered part of the woodwind family rather than the brass instrument family, primarily because of the fingering system.
It's always good to re-read about the inventors of what became our modern instruments. Thanks for sharing.
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Lots of blurred lines, though, Bob. Understandable.
In junior high, I got my first silver-plated trumpet. The other kids joked I shouldn't play when the band director said, "OK, brass only...".
And there's more brass in a sax than in a trumpet.
But "brass" normally means trumpets/cornets/flugelhorns, trombones, baritone/euphonium, and tuba/sousaphone. But usually not French horns, made of brass...
Perfectly clear, right?
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The definition of a "brass" instrument gets even more fun: A didgeridoo is made of wood, but is technically a brass instrument: it uses a "lip reed" (I.E. you blow raspberries into it all same as a trumpet or 'bone etc.), then there's the good old conch shell - same deal but it's made of Calcium Carbonate, the Serpent - wood again, the Cornett (Cornetti or Zink) - also wood but often with a leather cover...
Any others?
--=-- My credo: If it's worth doing, it's worth overdoing - just ask my missus, she'll tell ya --=--
Once got to see a realworld "Brake Drum Banjo" in use by the old guy who had built it in his youth. While he was not exactly a stellar player, his musical endeavors being strictly parttime for the old coal miner, his banjo struck me as being particularly sonorous and loud for its diameter.
The really neat thing about that instrument was in the close examination of its overall construction, everything on it but the tuning machines was uniquely home-brew, including the fretwires.
I've talked before about my paternal grandfather's self-built fiddle, also had a great uncle who had built his own small 8-string "guitar" in which there were doubles of each of 4 strings, like as done with a modern 12-string. Again, the only thing on that little ukelele sized guitar (mandolin? don't know, was too young at the time to know about such and the other men called it, his "guitar" as did he...) but only the tuners appeared to be "store-boughten" on it, that much I recall, as the tuners were metal with some sort of "plastic" buttons on them, yellowed and mellowed over the years with the tiny crazing cracks that most plastics of the era would suffer. The mechanism was nickel plated steel with bronze gears turned by the common steel screw gears.
Wish I had either in my possession today, the city fellers at the Antique Road Show would likely come unglued while assessing the value of the "folk art" instrument, eh?
I’ve never had the pleasure of seeing a Model T Ford brake drum banjo, but I’ve seen a few pics of them and read about them.
It’s cool that the mountain folk took whatever they could find and made instruments out of them.
As far as the 8 string guitar/ mandolin, I can see where those old guys would call it a guitar! It was probably close to what we would call an octave mandolin today.
There are two things that the article failed to mention which any student of musical instruments may be interested to learn.
The Saxophone is one of the earliest and, and possibly the very first example, of a deliberate and completely systematic design of a musical instrument, as opposed to all of the musical instruments which evolved gradually during human history. Consequently, the fingering was intelligently designed to be as easy as possible and allow playing difficult musical passages.
In contrast, the flute evolved over thousands of years -a very ancient bone flute was found in a cave of our early ancestors. One of the most recent improvements of the flute fingering is the Boehm system. The Clarinet has also undergone improvements in modern times to improve the playing of difficult musical passages etc, although it's origin is also believed to have been in the very far past.
Many of the modern musical instruments may have been born independently in various regions of the world, just consider the wide variety of bowed string instruments currently available in Africa, South America, Asia, as well as in various parts of Europe and America. Some may have been dispersed by ancient travelers.
By the time of Adolphe Sax's instrument making, the most sophisticated instrument makers understood much of the practical acoustics necessary for constructing differently scaled versions of their instruments -they were no longer limited to trial and error (where to place the holes in a tube and what size to make them).
The second thing the article fails to point out is that Adolphe Sax was also one of the first instrument makers who revolutionized the manufacture of musical instruments because he designed standardized, interchangeable instruments parts. Thus if your a part broke you could replace it without having the part custom crafted and it would fit. Of course this made mass production possible on a scale previously impossible, very useful if the order came in to supply a nations entire army -not every soldier, only the ones that played : )
Finally, Sax also designed lots of other musical instruments such as the Saxhorns.
The design of the saxophone is really an Organ Pipe, driven by a single reed, that allows the player to change the length of the pipe via the holes placed along the pipe via that system of keys and pads.
Unlike the Brass, where the total sound emanates entirely from the Bell, the Woodwinds sound actually emanates from any point along the length of the tube, depending upon the note being played at the time. This is why I always laff when I see a saxophone on a stage with a Mic pointed into the Sax Bell. But I digress, as usual.
Good point. If you look at my current Facebook profile pic where I'm playing soprano, I have the mic positioned to point at my left hand, about two thirds of the way up from the bell. The soprano sax low notes carry well on their own, and it's a pretty dreadfull sound right at the bell!
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